ELEGANT TEXAN: Who is Benini?
BENINI: I was born in Imola Italy, on April 17, 1941. My first memories are
ones that I recall in black and white, mixed with sounds of patriotic songs
and speeches blasting from loud speakers. The war was all around us. The
bombings did not really scare me at the time, as they turned into slumber
parties in underground shelters. Even the final bombing, when the allies
broke through the German “Gothic Lines” between Florence and Bologna, that
destroyed our home was not that bad, because we survived it hiding under the
stairway, the only part of the house to remain standing. My mother, however,
was a nervous wreck for years after that. My fear came months later when I
saw flatbed trucks loaded with the corpses of former Fascists killed by
partisans under the watch of the Allies, and fear smelled bad to me. To this
day, the thought of war brings back that darkness.
ELEGANT TEXAN: What influence might those memories have had for you?
BENINI: Perhaps the lack of color of my early memories explains the reason
that, as a painter, I have chosen the path of color to express myself. And
color has been the great ally in my work.
A deciding moment came early in my life: I received an
award at the age of seven for a watercolor depicting the castle of the
Estensi in Ferrara that got me started as an artist. I left home at the age
of 15, going from village to village in Italy, as an itinerant painter,
setting up my easel in the piazza, painting churches and small landscapes. I
sold them for whatever the buyers would give me, and it was usually enough
for pasta, wine and a humble lodging. On rainy days, I would complete
portraits inside a bar or osteria. I soon learned that if I painted the eyes
larger and the nose smaller, the clients would be more generous
…(chuckling..)
I would wait out the cold winters in large cities where
jobs were menial but the libraries and museums were tremendous. Ever since
my father took me to a speed-reading class in Bologna when I was nine, I
have read a book a day. To this day I keep the habit, seldom fiction, mostly
art-related biographies, and the work of contemporary
visionaries/philosophers, as well as science and trade journals.
ELEGANT TEXAN: How would you describe your career in art?
BENINI: Painting has always been my chosen medium, partly out of convenience
to my lifestyle. As a painter, I could move from place to place with
relative ease. As a sculptor, that would have been impossible; materials and
tools would have been too cumbersome. In those early years, landscapes,
still lifes and portraits took care of my basic needs.
As I matured, I realized the necessity of developing my
own style - an identifying one, to achieve recognition, so the paintings
became more stylized. Traveling from country to country, I noticed that
artists have a tendency to compete with one another along regional lines. I
never belonged to any region, so I was free to pursue my own path.
By 1965, I was working on board the Italian SS Oceanic,
sailing the oceans, to Central America and the Caribbean. On impulse, I
jumped ship. I was young and learning to speak English, and still rather
nomadic. I settled in Freeport, Grand Bahama. At the time, it was a newly
developed island with grand tourist ambitions.
I kind of grew up with the island, as a man and as an artist. And from
there, I started a series of one-man exhibitions in different European
countries, Canada, New York and other major East Coast Cities. I offered my
work to any gallery I came across, and eventually one would give me a show.
Pop Art had taken over the art scene at that time,
replacing Abstract Expressionism, that I greatly admired but could not get
myself to emulate. SoHo was just beginning to be an arts destination. It was
an exciting time to be in New York in the art world.
I would seek out artists whose work I would admire and
I would make pilgrimages to their studios; I found that the greater ones
were more generous with their time.
I was painting and exhibiting strong monochromatic works. They were not very
pleasant to live with, and not so easy to sell. By the early 70’s, I had
moved on to large-scale nudes that my dealer in New York, an old Romanian
hardhead, was selling from his S.A.G. gallery at Madison and 60th.
At the same time, in Europe, I was showing larger and
larger paintings of single roses. The art critics of the time called them
“Super Roses”.
ELEGANT TEXAN: Tell us about your life in the Bahamas.
BENINI: As the only known artist there on the 96-mile long island, life on
Grand Bahama Island was easy, I had collectors; Bahamians and international
visitors would seek my work and the young island was affording me a rather
glamorous life. The “Rat Pack” was visiting Grand Bahamas regularly and to
them, I was “the artista”. And a good drinking buddy, a habit I dropped
thirty years ago.
As I continued my exhibit schedule internationally, a
gallery in Houston exhibited my work from 1973 to 1975, a gentle older lady
who put up with my Superstar ambitions until her death in 1976. At that
time, I stopped exhibiting in commercial galleries, relying for exposure on
universities, museums, and other public institutions.
In 1977, I immigrated to America. I leased a DC-9 to
fly my 10,000 or so books, my paintings, a few personal effects and me, to
West Palm Beach.
I found a century-old Florida cracker house in a little
village, Evinston, Florida, 10 miles south of the library of the University
of Florida in Gainesville. Here, a few months later, a young, blue-eyed
reporter named Lorraine, came to interview me. She became my wife and
continues to manage the various aspects of my career.
ELEGANT TEXAN: Why Texas?
BENINI: All through my life journey I visited great and beautiful places and
yet, I never felt that I would fit into them. I have criss-crossed this
country repeatedly, with Lorraine, from Florida to Eastport, Maine and
Westport, Washington, usually to attend my exhibition openings. However, in
most of the places that appealed to me, the closest espresso bar was 300
miles away!
We did settle in Hot Springs National Park, charmed by
its similarities to the spa cities in northern Italy. And for more than ten
years, we lived and worked in a beautiful 1886 Victorian 10,000 sq. ft.
building that we had restored according to National Historic Preservation
guidelines. And yet, Arkansas, the Land of Opportunity, was not to be my
last move. From there, fortuitous circumstances brought us to the Hill
Country; it was love at first sight for this craggy hilltop overlooking a
green fertile valley. It was as if all the glimpses of beauty we had found
on our journeys had come together, and best of all, I found that in the
Texas state of mind, there are no limits.
ELEGANT TEXAN: Has living in Texas affected your work?
BENINI: The move to the Hill Country energized the work. Stars started
popping in and out of the freeform canvases. The technique I had developed
through the previous 20 years had allowed the paintings to appear
three-dimensional. Now the color contrasts got stronger, increasing their
depth. Texas even got into the titles: (a first) i.e., Lone Star Shooter,
Deep in the Heart, etc.
I also found a quarry in Marble Falls that allowed me
to roam into their “bone yard” and acquire unusual shaped granite pieces. So
the assemblages that I had always done on a small scale became 10 to 15 foot
sculptures.
As we displayed these pieces on the ranch with other
sculptures we had acquired over the years, other artist-friends visited and
decided to display their works here.
ELEGANT TEXAN: Let’s talk about your paintings.
BENINI: I seem to remember that in all of Leonardo’s extensive notebooks,
not one time did he write about his own paintings or about their meaning. I
am of the same mind: I would like for the viewer to participate on the
journey of discovery of these works of mine.
On a different note, usually artists of my age, with a
certain degree of success, have a number of assistants to help execute their
work. I work alone, always have. When a painting is finished - and sometimes
that is tough to know - I bring it out of the studio and hang it on the
wall.
Two years ago, I suddenly stopped painting the
dimensional, illusionistic paintings. Color started to direct me into a more
abstract work. With this series – Courting Kaos, I felt that I had given up
control of the pigments I had mastered in favor of the unexpected power of
color The more I worked on this, the more intrigued I became: first, on a
30” x 40” format and then on a larger scale up to 14 feet tall. I am still
working on this series now. It is on an emotional level that seems to have
left behind right brain dictum.
ELEGANT TEXAN: Who has been, and is, your audience?
BENINI: For almost 50 years of painting, I have never been concerned by the
audience. I am not a performing artist, so I have the privilege of painting
at my easel and showing and selling when and what I wish. Different places,
different collectors have allowed me to continue my creative journey and I
am grateful to all of them.
But now, on certain nights (as I paint only at night), when I take a break,
and walk into the exhibit areas of my Studio, I place a chair in the middle
of this cavernous metal building and I play different music as loud as
possible. At times Bach’s Mass in B minor, Monteverdi’s Selva Morale e
Spirituale, Jerry Lee Lewis’ Great Balls of Fire or Willie Nelson’s ballads
– and suddenly, I become the captain of this space ship hurtling through the
universe at 66,000 miles per hour, and I find myself watching a young man in
a faraway place 300 years from now standing in front of one of my paintings
trying to break my code, and until he does that, he is forced to look at it.
I see that it’s almost impossible for a being who, by then, has been
genetically programmed to fulfill a special role in a world where almost all
is virtual, and thoughts can be all that is needed to create anything. I
would like to help him to understand that a primordial human being took the
discipline and unthinkable (for him) time to make that painting, and yet
this old “sangue Romagnolo” likes the mind wrestling and likes to win. This
is my audience now.
Thank you.
Editor's Note: The Benini Foundation and Sculpture Ranch is open free to all
by appointment, by calling 830-868-5244, or visit
www.Benini.com.
Arts
Encounters at Benini’s!
Since January this year, the Benini Foundation Galleries and Sculpture Ranch
have hosted a series of cultural programs in fields related to the arts.
A 14,000 sq. ft. Studios Building on the ranch features
galleries, offices and the fine arts library. Here, the last weekend of each
month, the work of artists and other creative professionals are highlighted
during the Arts Encounters Series.
June 25th and 26th, for example, sculptor Roland Mayer,
from Raubling-Kirchdorf, Germany, is scheduled for a presentation of slides
of his monumental works installed around the world.
Gary Simmons, renown for his elegant and precise pen
and ink drawings, will present slides, and sign copies of his book, The
Technical Pen, a popular manual for the medium.
Susan Kirchman, who teaches digital photography at the
College of Architecture, Texas A & M University - and is planning to open
her contemporary fine arts gallery in Johnson City within the year - will
present slides of her photography.
A website was launched recently listing event schedules with artist
information at
www.ArtsEncountersAtBeninis.com.
Past programs have included Sam Spiczka from Minnesota
presenting his large-scale sculptures; C.L. Williams, Austin garden designer
par excellence speaking on The Art of Gardens: Design with Time; Horseshoe
Bay architect Marley Porter; Loren Impson’s focus on Ferro Cement
Applications for Building and Sculpture; Johann Eyfells speaking about the
works he has on permanent exhibit here; as well as Amazon
explorer/journalist Peter Gorman, whose writings have been published in
Omni, Wildlife Conservation, Mexico's Geo, and many more international
publications.
This cultural enrichment series is one of the components of the Benini
Foundation. The name Foundation is patterned after the European concept
whereby a recognized artist's work can be exhibited and studied, together
with the work of artist friends, like the foundations of Cezanne, Leger, and
Vasarely, etc. It is a foundation in name only, and not related to a 501c3
non-profit designation.
All events are open to everyone, free of charge. For
further information, visit the website for Arts Encounters or call
830-868-5244.
THE SCULPTURE RANCH
To visit The Benini Foundation Galleries and Sculpture
Ranch, art lovers travel to the Hill Country, about an hour's drive west of
Austin, Texas, between Johnson City and Fredericksburg.
“The decision to devote the 140 acres of Le Stelle to
large-scale sculptures by American and international artists was inspired by
sculpture sites around the country, such as the Storm King Art Center, the
Noguchi Museum, the Laumiere Sculpture Park, and others we visited around
the world.” Lorraine Benini said.
“This rugged Texas terrain, which reminds Benini of the
Mediterranean landscape he came from, calls for pieces that are large and
powerful,” she added.
Tom Edwards’ Celestial Sign stands sixteen feet tall
near the Studios Building. Two 16’ feet tall hands, Aspiration and
Determination, were installed by Loren Impson of Hot Springs National Park.
Some of the sculptures are in the permanent collection of the Benini
Foundation; most others are for sale. Interested collectors are put in touch
directly with the artists for acquisitions or commissions.
The first piece installed from the Benini collection,
Triangular Linguisticities by Johann Eyfells, included seven molten aluminum
triangles that hang from a centuries-old oak tree. Eyfells is a lifelong
sculptor whose work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, the World
Olympics and the Corcoran Gallery, among other places. At the age of 81,
Eyfells has relocated The Eyfells and Eyfells Foundation, featuring his
Receptual Art and the work of his sculptor/painter wife, Kristin
Halldorsdottir Eyfells, to the Texas Hill Country about 15 miles from the
Beninis. Within the past year, he has had 170 tons of sculpture transported
from Iceland, the country of his birth, as well
as Rotterdam, England, New York and Florida.
Marshall Cunningham has installed The Gathering, eight
pieces in sizes up to 16 feet in height. Cunningham moved his family and
studio to the Texas Hill Country last year, to the top of a stunning granite
mountain 16 miles north of Fredericksburg.
While steel is Dr. Cunningham’s preferred medium, finished with its natural
rust patina, he also paints some pieces with Chroma-lusion, producing
elegant, highly polished sculptures that reflect light in different colors.
Through the years, he has also worked with bronze, wood and stone.
The newest installation on the Sculpture Ranch, Mother
Guardian and Father Guardian, executed by Michelle O’Michael, at Blumenthal
Sheet Metal in Houston, is finished in a crimson powder coating, and
installed on a rocky knoll.
At the base of Rattlesnake Mountain, which is crowned
by the Beninis’ contemporary limestone and cedar home - the 14,000 sq.ft.
Studios Building houses Benini’s studio and galleries, showing his work of
the last 40 years, as well as the arts library and offices. This is the site
of the monthly Arts Encounters events. For more information, visit
www.SculptureRanch.com.
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